Save the Last Dance for Me, Dr Lahiri
by Sleepless in Boston
Summary: Mindy and Danny are back in NY. They try to navigate the transition between friendship, something more, and working together. Karma steps in and they have to figure out "whatever this is" between them.
1. Chapter 1

**Save the Last Dance for Me, Dr. Lahiri**

You can dance

Every dance with the guy

Who gave you the eye

Let him hold you tight/

You can smile

Every smile for the man

Who held your hand

'Neath the pale moonlight/

But don't forget who's taking you home

And in whose arms you're gonna be

So darlin'

Save the last dance for me

-The Drifters

Summary:

Mindy and Danny are back in NY. They try to navigate the transition between friendship, something more, and working together. Karma steps in and they have to figure out "whatever this is" between them.

Author's note: Thanks to Bethofbells, Mindy needed to deal with Danny's almost name calling before moving forward, so I had to incorporate that idea at the beginning or their "relationship" in this story or didn't make sense to me going forward. Trying to weave in moments of Season 2 is a bit of a challenge, since Mindy and Danny are in relationship purgatory, so you might recognize season 1 moments. In keeping with the spirit of the show, I thought I'd throw a couple of curve balls their way to see how they might handle it. Love all the Mindy-Danny stories others have written.

Disclaimer: TMP characters….wishing for Mindy and Danny this season. Want more Mindy-Danny drama!

Ch1: Closure and Karma: a couple of bitches.

It had been 6 weeks since Mindy and Danny returned from a medical conference in Boston, Mindy's hometown. Although Danny almost didn't go because it was dangerously close to hell on earth (i.e. Fenway Park, because he was a Yankees fan), he thought he'd better go and not let baseball define his career. What neither of them expected was to end up at an Indian wedding of a family friend of Mindy's and get swept up in their attraction for each other. One thing led to another, and they ended up in Danny's hotel room. Before you get any ideas, nothing really happened between these two. They had a long overdue make-out session, but Mindy still had a moral compass. Having sex with Danny would have been a Christina-type move, and that was not Mindy Lahiri's style. Mindy was engaged to Casey, but realized Casey…was…not…The…One. Mindy and Casey broke it off, and it hurt, but not as much as she expected, because she knew he wasn't the one. She was sentimental though, and she cared, so it was still sad. Danny kind of knew and just gave her some space, but he was still waiting for her. They drifted back to regular Mindy-Danny mode for a while, whatever that was.

There was that brief hiccup when Danny thought Mindy slept with Paul. When he heard Paul say that he slept with Mindy, he couldn't see straight or hear anything after that. That prick, who had the nerve to sit there as a sex therapist and then sleep with his ex-wife _and_ Mindy? And, Mindy, who was engaged, who seemed to share something with him in that God-forsaken city of the Red Sox, who consumed men and then spit them out? That didn't seem like her, to have sex with someone while she was engaged. He didn't like it, because he thought less of her and that maybe he was wrong about her character. And that would have been a deal breaker for him, if he couldn't trust her. So imagine what an absolute ass he felt like when he almost went there and called her a sl-. Well, he didn't say it, but she knew. She opened her mouth in protest, lest he say something he could never take back, but right at that moment, someone rushed into his office and saved him before he could say something he would regret forever. That saving grace was what made Danny believe in God. _What a first-class jerk_, he thought to himself in retrospect.

After Paul left and Mindy got her office back, Danny brought her a chocolate croissant and coffee from her favorite Parisian-style bakery on his way to work. He waited in his office until he heard her come into the office. He gave her five minutes to say her hellos and get settled in her office. He sauntered by her office door with coffee and pastry in hand and put in on her desk as a peace-offering. She looked at him, quiet and steely eyed behind her Clark Kent glasses. _Uh-oh, she was really, really pissed_. Her lips were in a tight, closed mouth smile, but that smile was not in her eyes. There was 'loud-mad' Mindy, who let him have it and argued with her hands when they argued about stuff. He knew how to deal with that Mindy. Then, there was 'quiet-mad' Mindy. He was scared of 'quiet-mad' Mindy because he had only seen it on rare occasion and didn't quite know how to handle that Mindy yet. He had some groveling to do to make amends.

"Mindy….." he started. He noticed she was tapping her foot impatiently under the desk. "I, uhm," he reached his hand nervously behind his neck and cleared his throat. He started sweating profusely. _Damn it!_

"Can I help you?" she said blankly. She was going to make him squirm a little. He was sweating. Good. Didn't he know her at all? She was trying to protect him from what Christina and Paul did to him, and that was the thanks she got? She tried to keep her anger in check. After it had happened, Mindy went back to her office, immediately called Gwen and spilled the beans after Danny almost called her a slut. _What the hell?_ she said, expecting Gwen to agree immediately. Gwen was of course, on Mindy's side, but did point out that at face value the situation did seem kind of bad from Danny's point of view. What would Mindy have done in that situation if the tables were turned? Okay, okay, she would have reacted the same way. Damn, her.

"I'm sorry for assuming the worst about you." he said with heartfelt remorse. "I should have known better. I'd understand if you hated my guts forever," he said quietly and looked down at his feet. Danny was not used to this. Nobody ever surprised him. Somewhere in his past, someone would pull the rug out from under him, just when he least expected it. He could push people away with the best of them. No one got to Danny Castellano first, he was ready to strike at a moment's notice. When he saw her face and then learned the truth, he realized this habit he somehow picked up along the way in life, he would need to un-learn with one Dr. Mindy Lahiri. It was not sustainable relationship behavior.

Mindy was done seeing him squirm. He was sorry. She forgave him. Quiet-mad Mindy was gone, but she needed to let him know that there was a new rule in their unofficial, unspoken Mindy-Danny rule book.

"Danny, I forgive you, but in the future, realize that once you say something, it's out there and you can't take it back."

"I know." Danny swallowed his pride. He couldn't take back the implication of what he said, and he knew he was going to be the one haunted by his actions, when they were married, when she was pushing out their babies, when he was having unbelievable sex with her. Lesson learned, new rule. _Try not to screw up like that again_, he thought to himself.

She sighed, lifting the mood with a dangerous smile crossing her lips. "All right, Danny. Let's go burn the sheets that Paul and Christina slept on in your apartment. It's bad karma," she said with a twinkle in her eye. Mindy always did things BIG. He liked that about her. He loved that about her. When he lit the flames, and saw the sheets burn, it felt cathartic. He felt lighter, and he let go of that anger towards Christina rather than hold on to it, like he was used to doing. _Progress_, he thought with a silent smile in his heart.

Danny smiled as he looked at Mindy standing next to him, watching the flames die out on his previous relationship with his ex. Symbolic closure, damn that Dr. Phil, maybe he wasn't such a new age son-of-a-bitch after all. Danny didn't deserve such a fabulous woman who had such wonderful ideas. When Mindy got home from Danny's that day, she saw a big bouquet of orchids at her door with a note:

_Min-_

_Knock, knock…._

_Who's there…?_

_Idaho…_

_Idaho who…..?_

_You are not the ho, I da ho._

_I don't deserve you. Thank you for the Dr. Phil moment._

_Love,_

_Danny_

Mindy laughed when she got the note and saved it in a box she had with the other letters she got from Danny while she was in Haiti. She knew they both needed closure from their past relationships before moving forward together. She texted Danny her response, who was on call that night:

_Sometimes closure and karma can be a couple of bitches._

_G-Night, Danny-boy._

_XO_

_Min_

Mindy went into her apartment, took a long bubble bath with a glass of wine in hand and listened to her "American songbook playlist"-Ella Fitzgerald, Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett among others. She went to bed, and had a deep, restful sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch2: Mindy + Danny: Where is the instruction manual to this part of the relationship?

6 am. Mindy's thoughts drifted as she was getting ready for work. She stepped into the morning shower, turning the water as hot as it would go. Steam everywhere, to help clear her mind. She closed her eyes. Mindy was having a quarter-life crisis. How could she have not seen it? She almost married the wrong guy! What other decisions could she have messed up in her life? Did she want to be a doctor? Yes. Did she want to be living in New York? Yes. Did she have feelings for Danny? Yes. Did she know what to do about it? Hells, no! No one gave you instructions on this part of the relationship. The romantic comedy movies always ended here when the protagonists got together. Why? Because no one knew what happened between here and….there. Was it because nothing interesting happened after that? Mindy wished there was a road map or instruction manual that let her know how to navigate this tricky relationship situation. Another week had passed and Mindy felt like she and Danny weren't like they used to be. Things had cooled considerably between them. They were still in a bit of relationship purgatory mode, suspended between heaven and hell. Mindy and Danny needed some time to process this new dimension in their relationship and not make the same mistakes from old relationships. They didn't know where to go or how to proceed, there was no map, and _dammit_, Danny was never the type to stop and ask for directions, anyways. When it came to stepping up, you could always count on Mindy. She was a straight shooter, she was honest, and she took no prisoners. They were friends wanting to be more but also worked together. Messy. "Arrgggh." she put her hands to her face and wiped the water from her eyes. She got dressed and went to work.

Sitting in her office, Mindy stared out of her office window, deep in thought. With Danny, it was more complicated because there were so many more emotional facets to their "whatever it was"-attraction, competition, angst, tenderness, jealousy, loyalty, longing, friendship. Their relationship was like a Rubik's cube that she couldn't quite solve yet, though she tried to in her mind. _I don't understand you, Danny. You probably get that a lot. _Danny's motives for what he did were not always clear to her at first, but often made sense in retrospect. She had hook ups with other colleagues before, but they were different. Other hook ups were much simpler. Take Jeremy Reed, for example. Hot shot with the British accent, work was work and sex was sex. Separate, each in its own nice, neat box. When Mindy would forget how to compartmentalize after their hook ups (back in the day), Jeremy always set her straight.

"Min-dy, sex is like a box of chocolates," he said and put a hand on her shoulder in the doctor's lounge one night after she had texted to him, "What's our deal again? Can we talk in the doctor's lounge?"

"What the…what….is this going to be some lame speech from _Forrest Gump_?" Mindy grumbled, rolled her eyes, and shrugged off his hand from her shoulder.

"No, I'm trying to explain it. Don't shoot the messenger." he said with hands in the air.

"Min-dy" he said in his impossibly sexy British accent, "Sex is physical, it's fun, it's a release. It's like food. Men need it, want it, gotta have it, constantly think about it. No….matter…what. There doesn't have to be anything attached to sex, not love, not romance, nada. Women communicate with romance and feelings…and apparently lots of talking. Men communicate with sex." Mindy didn't know why, but the message delivered in that British accent somehow made it easier to hear.

"I get it, okay!" Mindy said in an exasperated tone, but she didn't really. She was not a guy.

Danny was a guy. He prided himself on being a guy's guy. He took sports seriously. Check. He was great at work. Check. He was great at sex. You'd better believe it. Unless he wasn't into it. Danny thought back to those ridiculous sex therapy sessions with his ex. WTF? He most definitely did not need instructions or help in that area. He just was not into Christina anymore. It took every bit of self-control for him not to make a move on Mindy. Every…ounce…of….self-control not to have sex with her. Not that he didn't think about it. A lot. When he would see the contours of her breast under her silk blouse, his mind wandered. Different ways they would do it, what she would do to him, what he would do to her. He had a case of some serious aches down there recently, but he took care of it at home. As far as he knew, Mindy needed some space to take care of the situation with Casey. She seemed sad at work, but he knew she was leaning on Gwen, or Alex, or Maggie. He knew she would come back when she was ready. Work was work, and Mindy and Danny could keep their "whatever it was" in a box and open it later. He got it, he was a man. He could compartmentalize. So, he focused on keeping distracted, and it made sense to him. Danny joined an intramural basketball league at the YMCA. "The Getting Over it Gang" (aka GOIG) played basketball during lunch. There was an upcoming intramural game coming up against the "SoHo hos" a women's team. He heard they were good, like they played on their high school or college teams. Danny was not planning on losing a game to a bunch of girls, though, and he didn't care what they were called. He just hoped it wasn't karma coming to bite him in the ass again because he almost called Mindy a sl-, well, you know.

Then, one day, out of the blue, Mindy went by Danny's office, stood in his doorway and looked at him. He was sitting at his desk, working on his patient charts. He could feel her there, looking at him, and he looked up. She was wearing her trademark Clark Kent glasses with her shoulder length hair framing her face, a print blouse with the top buttons unbuttoned, a form-fitting pencil skirt and kitten heels. He looked at her full, heart-shaped lips, the perfect shade of dark pink. God help him, she looked like she needed to be taken, right there, on his desk. It was one of many scenarios he had played out in his head.

"Uh, hey, what's up?" he said instead. Thank God he was sitting down behind his desk so she couldn't see his body betraying him with a salute to her.

"Let's have lunch today, there's something I want to talk about." Mindy said to him.

_Jesus, holy crap_. She didn't change her mind about them, did she? He felt himself starting to perspire, right above his lip. Damn, he wish he didn't have such an easy tell when he got nervous.

"Is it something I should be worried about?" he asked casually.

Mindy saw Danny's lip upper lip glisten with sweat. She saw a glint of sadness in those melancholy brown eyes. She went over and kissed his upper lift softly, then licked the sweat off his lip, and pulled back with a smile like a Cheshire cat that just ate the canary.

"Don't worry, Danny. God, you are such a drama queen. I just wanna talk, okay?" Mindy shook her head and smiled with those bedroom eyes behind those bookish glasses. She loved teasing him and she was good at it.

"Okay, I get it, you…just wanna talk…." Danny said with a relieved half-smile. But he didn't get it, 'cause he wasn't a girl.

She left and he went back to work on his computer until lunch.

Noon. Mindy and Danny had to go make rounds a the hospital after lunch, so they decided that they would grab a bite at their favorite deli on the way to the hospital. She got a meatball sub and he got a turkey club. They both got waters and Mindy got a bag of chips for them to share. Rather than go to the doctor's lounge and each lunch like they normally would, they walked half a block and sat down for a quick bite at a park on a bench. It was a nice fall day, and nice to get some fresh air.

"So, Danny, I've been thinking," Mindy started out saying.

"Where do we go from here?" Danny finished Mindy's thought as he took a bite of his turkey sandwich. Looks like they were going to open the "whatever it was" box right here, right now. He hoped it wasn't going to be opening a Pandora's box, a seemingly small action with rather far reaching consequences. He held his breath.

"Right." she said. "I was thinking to myself, what would Beyonce and Jay-Z do in this situation…"

"What? Come again?" he was not expecting that. "Uh, we are not Beyonce and Jay-Z…"

"I know that, but listen….they work together in the same business, like us," Mindy explained. She was going to say that Beyonce and Jay-Z had to figure out what to do in between "Crazy in Love" and "Put a Ring on It" but she didn't want to scare him. If there was one thing Mindy learned from celebrity gossip magazines was that, once a star had an open relationship in the media and it went south, that said star learned his or her lesson and kept their mouths zipped for the next one. Beyonce was smart, though, she never spilled the beans, not even to Oprah. Somewhere between 'crazy in love' and 'put a ring on it' they somehow figured it out, privately. _Oh boy, this analogy was going to be lost on Danny_. She switched gears to another, more familiar reference.

"Okay, remember in the _Godfather_, when Michael Corleone tells Kay not to ask him about his business?"

"Great scene. I have that movie memorized, you know," he said matter-of-factly with a grin.

"I figured as much. So, I think we should keep this," she gestured between herself and Danny, "on the down-low so that we can figure this out for ourselves, without other people at work interfering."

"No problem. I'm all for privacy," he agreed.

"Danny, I hate to tell you this, but you are a terrible liar. You cannot keep anything a secret!" she said gesturing to him up and down.

"What are you talking about?" Danny said, with surprise, "Of course I can!"

"Danny, you do this thing with your arms and talk unusually loudly as you back out of the room, and everyone can see right through your flimsy made-up errands," she replied, and got up and showed him what he did.

Danny was amused, okay, he was not a very good liar. "I can handle things. I'm smart, not like everybody says. Not dumb, I'm smart and I want respect!" Danny said in his Fredo voice.

"Okay, we…will…work with that, Fredo," she said with a snicker. "Also, I was thinking, we need to add to our pager codes."

"What? Why?" he asked. He and Mindy had set up a series of pager codes. It was like morse code, but in numbers. Sometimes in the hospital there was a dead zone, so they couldn't text on their phones and needed to communicate with their pagers. Or, one of them would not be at the hospital to be able to use the hospital computer to text page the other, so they would have to send a number code.

So far they had:

"1234"-gotta clinical question for you. Call me.

"007" -here at the hospital with take-out food, meet me in the lounge when you are done with the delivery.

"911"-get your ass in the operating room and help me. One of them would be operating, and tell the scrub nurse to page the other.

"44"-also known as a Dunkie's run for coffee. Response code, "1" want black coffee "2" coffee with cream and sugar "3" need turbo shot "4" you just asked me 2 seconds ago, do you want my bladder to explode in the operating room? Danny explained that one to Mindy after a particularly long C-section.

"I don't know yet, but I think something is gonna come up sometime, so I need some way to ask you stuff like: do you want me to wait for you and take the subway home together…do you want to go out and grab a bite for dinner….I'm going home now, call me later."

"How about a code for 'I'm not wearing any clothes, get over to my place?" Danny asked hopefully. She shot him a look. "Okay, Lahiri, let's think of these codes over dinner and a show tonight. I'll pick out the restaurant. Do you want to get tickets to a show? My only requests are that it does not involve cats or singing animals. I gotta meet the guys for basketball and then I have a scheduled C-section. I'll pick you up at your place."

"I still think you should reconsider the basketball thing. I mean, those guys are just wallowing in self-pity. Plus, you are going to play against a women's team called the SoHo hos? I can't see that ending well, Danny."

"I'll be fine, Min, don't get all riled up."

She gave him a sweet smile and they walked to the hospital to round on their patients. "Okay, it's a date," Mindy said, "Don't be late."


	3. Chapter 3

Ch3: Karma: the bitch is back

Danny felt good about tonight with Mindy. They were moving forward together again, out of relationship purgatory. He planned on taking her out to a new romantic Italian place in midtown, which was close to the theater district, and made the reservation from his phone app. Danny also planned on stopping by and getting her some flowers before going over to her place to pick her up, and ordered the flowers from his phone.

After rounding in the hospital, he met up with the guys at the YMCA. They were all standing around, when they saw the SoHo hos basketball team. Okay, these women were really tall, like between 6'0" and 6'5". They were also very intimidating looking, since they actually had uniforms. God, did these women play for the WNBA? At least there was no dunking in the WNBA, was there? Actually, even if they could dunk, none of the guys on the team could dunk, so whatever. They started playing, and these women were good. The guys on the team were going all out, and Danny was working up a sweat. Fourth quarter: Danny looked at the scoreboard, and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand: GOIG v SHH 40-80. Okay, this was not going to happen, SHH was going to trounce GOIG. He saw the cosmic justice in that, and thought of Mindy and smiled. Danny was playing guard, and should have just accepted the inevitable loss, but he couldn't go down without a fight. He took on number 69, with a name on her jersey of "Biyach". At first Danny thought it might have been an unusual name, until one of the guys explained it to him (Bitch). God, Danny could be so naïve sometimes, which was an interesting paradox since he seemed so world-weary and jaded at other times. Anyways, she was a good player, and number 69 had been burning him all night with drives to the hoop, so when she pulled up to pass, he was all over it, and stuck his hand out to block the pass. Apparently "Biyach" possessed superhuman power, and although he got his hand on the pass to block it, he simultaneously heard and felt a crack as his index finger snapped and he fell down. Biyach gave him a hand up and swatted his ass, "C'mon, Little D, walk it off." Danny cursed under his breath and put his finger back in place. It didn't hurt immediately, but after the game ended, it started to hurt… a lot. _Oh crap…this…was…not…happening_; he might have broken his finger and he had a C-section to do! This was not good. _Karma_.

He was still cursing under his breath on the way to the ER.

Danny went to the ER after the game and yep, it was broken. Danny felt like a loser calling Jeremy for help since he was on call. Jeremy said he would take care of it, but only if Danny agreed to stop it with the basketball for a while. Now, Danny was late picking up Mindy. Danny went home to shower, got dressed, grabbed his jacket, and decided to forgo the flowers so he wouldn't be extra late. Danny decided to take his pager in case Jeremy needed his help for the delivery. He felt guilty.

Meanwhile, Mindy had primped herself up from 'whoa' to 'damn' a long time ago and was waiting for Danny. She looked out of her window of her bedroom to see if Danny might be walking to her building. No Danny, but she looked up in the sky and saw a big harvest moon. _See, this is what she meant, she needed a code for "where the hell are you?" for their paging system. Was he running late with the case? Did he get mugged on the way over? Was he abducted by aliens? _Mindy's imagination often went to extreme scenarios. _Oh crap_, she just remembered, she was supposed to get theater tickets. _Avenue Q_. Sold out. _Book of Mormon_. Sold out. _Cats_. Balcony seats left, but Danny would die before seeing that. _Hmmm_. What about the off, off-Broadway musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's _Sirens of Titan_? _Slaughterhouse Five_ was kind of a downer, but who knew, maybe this would be a lighthearted adaptation. At least it would be better than the "dramatic interpretation of the musical interpretation of "A Bug's Life" that she had also considered. A gamble, but she ordered the tickets. _How bad could it be_?


	4. Chapter 4

Ch4: Danny + Mindy: just our luck

Danny knocked at her door, finally. He was so late. No flowers. This date was not going as planned. Maybe when she opened the door, he would suggest they just stay in, order take-out and watch any movie she wanted.

Mindy opened the door, "We gotta go, we're going to be late for the show!" She grabbed her keys and locked the door quickly. Danny didn't have the heart to back out. She obviously spent some time getting ready and was dressed to impress.

"You…look…damn," he started with a smile, "beautiful." He looked her up and down with appreciation. Mindy was wearing a knit blue sweater sweater dress which hugged her curves in all of the right places. She smiled.

"Thanks, you look nice….but we are going to be so late!" They hailed a cab and he opened the door for her and scooted in next to her. Mindy gave the cabbie the address to the off, off-Broadway theater. Mindy looked down at the seat and noticed Danny's finger was in a splint. A surgeon who broke his finger? Not good, not good at all.

"Danny, what the hell…?" and she pointed to his hand, horrified.

"I was going to block a pass, but….well let's just say Biyach got the last laugh," he trailed off. "Jeremy is doing the C-section but I brought my pager in case he needed help."

Mindy pressed her lips together to avoid smiling. She did not know there really _was_ a Biyach.

Mindy and Danny sat in the taxi as it sped toward the theater. The taxi turned right and came up to a crowd of bicycle protesters blocking traffic intentionally. The taxi grounded to a halt.

"I can't believe this is happening!" said Mindy.

"Maybe they're all going to _Sirens of Trojan_," said Danny.

"What?"

"_Sirens of Troja_n."

"No, Sirens of TITAN, Danny, you know the Kurt Vonnegut book? Not like the condoms."

"Sounds like a real uplifting musical," said Danny being snarky. "Anyway," he said, "I thought it was Trojan, not Titan".

"No, it's a moon of Saturn. I took an astronomy class in college, and I've always been into planets."

"Me too," Danny said. "I always liked Pluto the best. It was like the little planet that didn't get any respect, but it still hung with the rest…it even got ahead of Neptune every few years."

"Whatever…you know Pluto is so not a planet!"

"Yeah, right."

"No, seriously, they took it away like way back in 2000 or something."

"You can't just de-planet a planet."

"You'd better believe it."

"How did I miss that?"

"You were so busy then, you never had time to watch the national news," said Mindy.

"Mindy, you know I only watch local news. Remember the women's health segment you dumped on me? We'll take this up later," said Danny, still not believing that Pluto no longer counted as a planet.

The taxi still remained at a stand-still. Mindy rolled down her window.

"Let's go, let's GO," screamed Mindy at the bikers.

"C'mon!" yelled Danny.

Suddenly, Danny noticed one of the bikers wearing a jersey, looking too familiar. It was definitely a SoHo ho's jersey. Biyach.

"Hey Biyach!" he yelled out the window.

"Danny!" said Mindy, shocked.

"It's ok, I know her," he responded.

"Whatcha want?" said Biyach.

"It's me, you know, Danny, from the basketball game!"

"Haeeey, Lil' D, how you doin'?" said Biyach, flirtatiously.

"Not so good. We need to get to the theater!" Then he mouthed "first date," silently as he pointed to Mindy with his splinted finger. "You owe me one, Biyach!"

"Little D, you had a lot of heart out there on the court…I'll get you there," and then to the fellow bikers, "Let's move it girls…Dr. Danny's gotta first date."

The bikes began to part as the theater came into view.

"Thanks."

"Anytime Lil' D."

As the taxi began to speed towards the theater, Danny called out, "Hey Biyach, is Pluto really not a planet?"

"Where you been, bro? Pluto ain't been no planet since 'Oh six'!"

"You weren't even a resident then," said Mindy.

"Mindy, I was your chief resident, so I was busy. Pluto not a planet? I still don't buy it," said Danny.

The taxi screeched to a halt in front of the small, hole in the wall, theater as Mindy and Danny hopped out. They snuck into their seats in the middle of the first act, as Salo the robot was singing the theme song of "Titan up and lighten up".

"Is this supposed to be a comedy?" asked Danny.

"Hey, this was a cult classic novel," said Mindy.

The couple settled into the musical, as the chorus of Tralfamadorian dancers tap-danced and sang songs to awkward Vonnegut lyrics. Just as the the climax of the novel musical was approaching, the audience was silent (with a combination of anticipation and boredom), and suddenly Danny's pager began to beep. He tried to grab his pager and turn it off, but his broken finger interfered, and it scooted two rows ahead and kept beeping. Beep-beep-beep-beep.

"Mindy," Danny whispered. "Help me find the pager!" He got out of his seat and was waving his arms under the seats, searching for the pager.

"Ugh," Mindy covered her face with her hands. "This could not get any worse." She rummaged through her purse, some of the contents spilling out, found her phone and started crawling under the seats. She put on the phone flash light.

"Hey, man, turn off the phone!" someone hissed behind her.

"Just…a minute, sir!" She suddenly looked and saw Brendan and Duncan Deslaurier sitting behind her.

"Mindy, is that you?" asked Brendan.

"Uh, no, I think you have me mistaken for someone else," Mindy said in a high falsetto voice. As Mindy tried to cover her face so she wouldn't be seen, she spotted the pager under the seat. She reached over to get it when she heard a rip and felt her dress ripping. _Crap. This night could get worse_. She grabbed the pager and hauled ass to the ladies bathroom, clutching her ripped dress awkwardly.

She texted Danny:

_Got your pager._

_Get to the exit without Brendan and Duncan seeing you._

_Meet me by the ladies bathroom._

_Fashion emergency!_

Danny crawled down the row and up the aisle, drawing bemused expressions from the other theater patrons.

Then, he met Mindy at the ladies' bathroom door, drawing more than a few annoyed looks from women exiting the bathroom.

"Mindy, this is a little forward for a first date," he joked as he noticed her basically holding up the back end of her dress with a sizable tear.

"Zip it, Danny!" snapped Mindy.

"I think it will need much more than a zipper to fix that!" He said, forcing a reluctant smile from Mindy. "Here, take my jacket."

"Let's just go back to my place so I can change," Mindy said flatly taking Danny's coat. "Thanks for letting me use your coat. Oh, Jeremy paged you to say that the delivery went just fine."

They grabbed a cab back to Mindy's place. As they walked up to the door, Mindy reached for her keys in her purse, but couldn't find them. Where were her keys? She vaguely remembered some stuff spilling out of her purse during the show and wondered if she lost her keys there.

"This would never happen to Beyonce and Jay Z…." she mumbled. "Danny, I think I lost my keys at the theater!"

She dumped her purse contents out on the ground in frustration. Out came receipts, pens, a pound cake, two defunct pagers, a few rainbow-dyed rabbits' feet key chains, a beanie baby, a pair of Mickey Mouse ears, and a pair of Groucho Marx glasses… but no keys. Danny looked on inquisitively.

"Don't ask…I haven't cleaned out my purse since I was Mouse-o Marx for Halloween," said Mindy.

Jokingly, Danny put on the mouse ears and Mindy put on the glasses, and they started crawling around looking for keys, when her skirt ripped again, un-noticed by Mindy or Danny.

Another tenant opened the door to the building to exit, only to see the Mindy and Danny crawling around on the floor looking for keys. The tenant overheard only part of Mindy and Danny's conversation about the basketball game earlier that day:

"I can't believe Biyach bent it that way," Mindy had been saying.

"Yeah, I had been on her two-on-one before it happened," he responded.

The horrified tenant tried to sneak around the pair when they turned around, one in Mickey mouse ears, and the other with Groucho Marx glasses in a dress that was torn on the backside.

"Back off! Back off!" The tenant screamed, reaching into her coat pocket for the pepper spray…


	5. Chapter 5

Ch5: Go Big or Go Home: Home it is!

Since Mindy couldn't get into her apartment and change out of her "backdraft" dress, they decided to go to Danny's and she changed into his tee-shirt and sweatpants. He did the same, for camaraderie, of course. He whipped up an impromptu dinner. Danny hadn't gone to the grocery store, so they had scrambled eggs and french toast for dinner. Breakfast for dinner. This date could not get any weirder. As Danny was cooking, Mindy opened up cabinets to find the coffee mugs and made the coffee. They both ate eagerly, realizing they were really, really hungry.

"Danny, you can cook!" Mindy said eating up the scrambled eggs. "How did you make them?"

"My ma taught me how to make cold-start scrambled eggs, and I paid attention," he said nonchalantly. He was actually a really good cook, but he never really told Mindy that. Just another thing she would find out about him in time.

"These are seriously some really good eggs. So fluffy and light. When I make eggs, they turn out all wrong. You'll have to teach me sometime," Mindy said as she stuffed in another bite of eggs.

"Didn't you tell me you were banned from cooking when you were at home?" Danny said, not sure he wanted to take on an apprentice sous chef that would ruin his chef's kitchen.

"No, Danny, I told you. I was afraid of getting hot oil splattered on my arms so I wore oven mitts to make eggs, but accidentally caught the mitts on fire," she replied.

"Uh, huh. Why don't you stick to making the coffee and I'll make the eggs?" he offered.

"Okay, deal," she said.

They moved over to the living room with coffee mugs in hand and plopped down next to each other on the soft leather couch and put their feet up on the coffee table.

"I can't believe we got pepper sprayed on our first date," said Mindy leaning her head back on the couch.

"I can honestly say I've never been pepper sprayed on a date until I met you," Danny said and nudged her side with his elbow and smirked.

"Hey, did you see that harvest moon tonight?" Mindy asked. "Weird things happen on full moons. Like our date from hell tonight," she said shaking her head in disbelief.

"Definitely a weird night, that's for sure. Was it worse than your date with Morgan?" he asked.

"Yep, God, it was definitely worse," she said suppressing a smile.

"Yessss, go big or go home," Danny said with a smirk.

"What do you want to watch?" he said as he flipped on the TV. Mindy and Danny had an unspoken understanding. There was not going to be any hanky panky tonight. They were not going to tempt fate. Or Karma.

"_Sex and the City_?" Mindy suggested.

"Can't watch that show now or ever. How about the Ken Burns documentary?" he countered.

"How about _Game of Thrones_?" she countered back.

"Deal." They watched the show together, and Mindy stole a glance at Danny. He looked relaxed, comfortable, and content. He looked over at her and smiled.

"What?" he said.

"Just thinking. I'm glad I met you in my 30s instead of my 20s. When I think back, I didn't know much about life or myself, but I didn't know it then. Just too busy trying to get through med school, residency, and not getting murdered…." she trailed off.

"Is that like a recurring nightmare or something?" Danny asked. She certainly had some morbid fear of getting murdered, which he realized on one late night in the doctor's lounge when she wore that crazy scary mask.

"Actually, it is. Sometimes I wake up in a cold sweat. That's why I can't watch horror movies. Plus, I have a fear of haunted houses. What about you, do you have a recurrent nightmare?" she asked.

"Yeah, rogue waves," he said. "That's why I find it strangely fascinating to watch _The Deadliest Catch_. I kind of wanna see that rogue wave. But, I know what you mean about us not meeting earlier in life. I know it's hard to believe, but I had no idea what I wanted out of life back then, either. Hell, I didn't even know Pluto got de-listed, which by the way, I am going to google right now…" he got up and went over to his bedroom to get his laptop.

Mindy followed him to the bedroom. She stood with her cup of coffee in hand, counting down in her mind_….3…..2…1…._

"Son of a….really?" he said as he got his answer, looking at the screen. He was absorbed in reading about how this happened and when.

Mindy looked over at his open night table drawer where he kept his laptop. She noticed a rosary next to a stack of envelopes with her handwriting on it. _Hey, Danny kept her letters that she wrote to him while she was in Haiti!_ She wasn't the only sentimental one. Mindy smiled at the thought…Danny had a bit of a romantic side to him. A quiet romantic. She wondered if she should say something, and maybe tease him about it, but decided not to as she looked at his face, brows knit in concentration reading the screen.

Maybe this date wasn't so bad after all, she thought. She looked out of his bedroom window at the harvest moon glowing in the sky, and smiled. The wheels in her head started turning…


	6. Chapter 6

Ch6: Drs. Mindy "Beyonce Pad-Thai" Lahiri and Danny "Gettin' Over It" Castellano: Somewhere between "Crazy In Love" and "Put a Ring on It"

As always, you could count on Mindy to save the day, or in this case, a date. She was like Superwoman when she wanted to be, whether it be kicking ass of poaching mid-wives or delivering breech babies in emergency surgery. To be fair, after she got to know the Deslauriers and Brendan apologized for being such a dick, they were on okay terms. She didn't think they were such quacks anymore, and she respected what they did for their clients/patients. Dare she say she might go back for a hot stone therapy session? Anyways, back to Danny's bedroom:

"Hey, Danny, let's go up to the rooftop and go look at Pluto and the harvest moon. I saw you had a telescope in your living room." Mindy suggested.

Danny looked up from his laptop screen and smiled with a hint of mischief, "Should we just feign amnesia from the events earlier tonight?"

"Castellano, you read my mind," she said. "I'll get the wine glasses and the wine."

"And I'll get the telescope," he finished.

Upstairs on the rooftop, they sat next to each other on a blanket, glass of wine in hand, looking up at the night sky. They were both sitting cross-legged knees touching, leaning slightly back on the hand not holding the wine. Mindy broke the ice.

"You know, Danny, do you ever worry about building up something in your mind, only to be disappointed later?" she started.

"Uh, story of my life," he said sarcastically with a hint of bitterness.

She gave him a sideways glance. "Well, for me, when I was a kid, I really, really wanted a Snoopy snow cone machine. The commercials with all the kids eating their snow cones looked so fun. I was in fifth grade. But, for my birthday, my parents took me to the Toys R Us and I could only get one thing. Parents are so indulgent these days, back then you only got one thing. Anyways, I was torn between the Snoopy snow cone machine and a new tennis racket. I had a long, internal monologue in my head about the pros and cons about the Snoopy snow cone machine and the practicality of the new tennis racket."

"What did you end up getting?" Danny asked.

"The tennis racket. It was practical. But I kind of always regretted making the safe choice." she said wistfully. "I got the Snoopy snow cone machine later, but it ended up breaking the first time I used it, and I ended up disappointed."

"Mindy, where are you going with this story?" Danny asked.

"I don't know." Mindy said

"How about this? Sometimes, with great expectations comes inevitable disappointment." he said wearily.

"No, that's not what I'm saying," Mindy corrected. "Jeez, Danny, that just sounds like a depressing outlook on life."

She continued. "What I'm saying is that even though it can be scary to take a risk on the unfamiliar, or the less practical choice, it keeps life interesting."

"I hate to break it to you, but taking unnecessary risks and making reckless decisions is how people end up getting hurt." Danny wasn't sure what they were talking about anymore, but he had to be truthful with Mindy about his point of view. No matter how romantic the situation was supposed to be, she started this, and they were going to finish it. That's just how they were, always have been, and always will be.

"You know, Danny-downer, let's just get this out of the way now. Let's just talk about why we would never work, and if we both agree at the end of this that it would never work, then we both saved ourselves some time. I'll start. Okay. You are obviously so much older than me, our kids would wonder how two people from different generations got together."

"Mindy, we are five years apart. Fine. You like celebrity gossip and romantic comedies way too much. It makes you seem ditzy."

"Hey, I need an outlet for fluff after the crap at work we have to deal with. Plus, you are not exactly a ray of sunshine, Mr. Doom and Gloom."

"At least I don't have my heart stomped on week after week by a parade of men and we have to hear all about it at work." Danny was going to go there.

"No, you just drink alone and show up half-naked in your office at work." Mindy smiled at him.

"I don't like that you felt the only solution to get your office back from Paul was through a drinking contest. I don't care that you can drink anyone under a table. It's not classy, Lahiri," he retorted.

"Classy like the time you and Jeremy didn't have the guts to fire Beverly and I ended up getting punched in the face?" she cocked her head.

"You always expect me to be the fall guy and pick up the pieces of whatever you dump in my lap. Remember the delivery when you were thrown in jail... or women's health segment that you were supposed to do?" he threw his hands in the air.

"Remember Stevie, whom you were prescribing illegal narcotics to? Who had to rescue you from that?" she threw her hands in the air.

"Need I remind you that you brought a prostitute into my home? My home?" he shook his head.

"What about when you were so desperate to be in a relationship that you hooked up with your ex-wife, who cheated on you again? How naïve can you be?" she narrowed her eyes, going in for the kill.

"I'd rather be naïve than so desperate to be in a relationship that I almost slept with the male nurse who has 'magic powers' after calling off my engagement!" he shot back, eyes narrowed. Two can play this game.

Mindy and Danny locked eyes, dead heat, at a standstill. Mindy narrowed her eyes with frustration directed towards Danny. Danny's nostrils were flared in anticipation of her retort. Mindy grabbed Danny to her and kissed him on the lips. She pushed open his mouth, searching for his tongue. He responded, eagerly and expertly kissing her back, his hands reaching up to her face. She let out a soft moan, driving him slowly out of his mind. Their hearts were racing, and Mindy pulled back first. Their foreheads were touching, and they were both breathless after that kiss.

"I didn't see that one coming," he said. Danny looked at her with those intense smoldering, mysterious, melancholy brown eyes.

"Now I know," Mindy said.

"Know what?" he asked searching to read her mind.

"That you don't have a plan B and that you're all in. 'Cause I'm all in, Danny, if you are," she said with a knowing smile and a twinkle in her eyes.

Danny smiled a sly smile. "I'm glad we got that out of the way. I've waited for you long enough, Mindy Lahiri. Now that you are done, we are going to…." he started kissing her neck.

"Don't _tell_ me, Castellano, _show_ me what you want, and this time, bring your A-game."

And he did, much to Mindy's delight.


End file.
